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Fremont Older-Stevens Creek Loop

I dropped my mom off at the San Jose airport so I took the opportunity to visit a pair of parks I have never seen in the area just outside of Cupertino: Fremont Older Open Space Preserve and Stevens Creek County Park. These parks are great! The vistas are gorgeous and there is nice variety with fireroads, single track, meadows, and hardwood forest. On this day there was some nice fall color and I will definitly return to see these hills when they are green in the spring. The loop was about 9.5 miles and it took 72 minutes.

The excellent loop I ran covered most of the terrain in these lovely parks. I started in Fremont Older at the end of Prospect Road, but one could also start at Stevens Creek County Park. I first did the Seven Springs Trail Loop and then linked to the Coyote Ridge Trail using the Hayfield Trail. The Coyote Ridge trail is a fire road and heads down steeply to Stevens Creek Reservoir (in my opinion, much better to run down then up it). At the bottom you reach the Stevens Creek/Tony Look Trail. This trail has a short steep climb and then is flat for 0.3 mile along the reservoir shore before turning left into the hardwood forest and single track. The awesome single track continues for several miles as the trail name changes to the Lookout Trail. At the top of the Lookout Trail, you reenter Fremont Older OSP and there are numerous variations to finish up the run depending on what distance you are aiming for. I took Vista Loop Trail to Coyote Ridge to Toyon Trail, but next time I will run to Garrod Farms and catch the Toyon Trail from it’s start and add a mile to the loop. Vista Loop and Coyote Ridge are Fireroads while Toyon Trail is narrower horse trail.

Overall, I was super happy to find another great Bay Area trail running location!